


Maybe in One of Those, We Can Win it All

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And they deserved better, Angst, F/M, Many alternate universes because I'm skyeward trash, Multiverse, powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: The world ends.Not in a flash, not because of aliens, not because of a Third World War. There is a disease, spreading to certain people, with a specific gene and DNA that gifts them with incredible powers.Or : there are many universes where Skye and Grant meet, in many different ways, and each world has its own story.
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson & Grant Ward, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Grant Ward
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	Maybe in One of Those, We Can Win it All

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this one wouldn't leave me alone til I wrote it, so here you have it. A multitude of universes in which Skye and Ward meet, love each other or kill each other, and no I won't ever get over them. Not sure I'm satisfied with how it turned out, let me know what you think in the comments !  
> Enjoy !

The world ends.

Not in a flash, not because of aliens, not because of a Third World War. There is a disease, spreading to certain people, with a specific gene and DNA that gifts them with incredible powers. Except those last are not the fun kind; they’re the destructive kind, the one that cannot be controlled and will destroy its host from the inside before being tamed.

Those people are sick, plastered with a plague putting them and everyone they encounter at risk, endangering the whole world. Grant is not a scientist, but he volunteered to help inside those hospitals that look more like a cemetery. Deathbeds are lined up, people choking on blood or electricity or fire or gas.

He gives them food, reads them letters from their family, dries their faces drenched in perspiration, and hopes for a better tomorrow.

It never comes.

He hates room 221D. There is a girl in there, isolated, because her powers can bring buildings down and destroy cities to dust. But she keeps it in, keeps it contained, letting it ravage her organs and her bones and every cell of her body.

And she screams and screams and bruises and blood always splatter her skin, but she never lets it out. He admires her for it, and his nights are often filled with the echo of her shouts or her whimpers, depending on the day. He hates that room, because her situation represents the utter despair these people feel, and the government and doctors' helplessness.

The world isn’t fair, he has always known that, but unfairness took a whole new meaning when people started dropping like flies, killing their own family in the wake. The lucky ones died alongside them.

The others woke up to their ashes, to their skinned, frozen, bubbling or electrocuted remains.

Why should this girl live in fear her whole life ? Why should her bones break inside her body, pierce her skin under the tremors ? Why should she have to pay for her parents’ mistake of exposing her to the disease ?

It makes Grant sick, to pass in front of 221D, makes him sick to give her food.

But he does, and he tries to smile when he does, because this girl is saving everyone except herself, and she’s got nothing for it.

One particular bad day, where there are no screams but just silence and overflowing tears, she talks to him for the first time.

“What’s you name ?” She whispers, and it would get lost in the room if he didn’t pay so much attention to her (her bangs are matted to her forehead and temples, her body is shaking from the inside, and he wishes he could come in and take a bit of her pain).

When he locks eyes with her, she’s already looking at him, black irises filled with silent pleas and wishes.

“I’m Grant,” he answers.

His raspy voice seems too loud in the little room, yet her lips twitch in something that could’ve become a smile, in another place at another time. After a shiver that lasts far too long for it to be normal, she exhales through her purple chapped lips and says:

“Tell me your story, Grant.”

He does, because he knows what it’s like to feel desperate and need someone else to be your silver lining, and he tells her as much.

Henceforth, Grant begins to gain mixed feelings for room 221D.

Although he hates the screams, hates the pain, hates the sickness that radiates from her body and is palpable even through the transparent plexiglas door, he gets attached to her.

He knows it’s dumb. Everybody knows it’s dumb, they give the volunteers a speech when they arrive.

But it’s also inevitable.

And with Skye -she told him her name after he offered his own story- it’s inevitable not to get attached. She is fierce and sharp witted, has hope on her tongue despite the impossible situation she’s been thrown in, and she is so goddamn brave. So he visits her every day, trying to lift a bit of the pain she carries all the time with silly stories he shares, cross-legged on the floor or in a chair.

He sneaks her candies when he can, reads her the not-so-depressing news. They try to guess each other’s middle name, which leads to awful imaginative nicknames.

Skye doesn’t get better, because the world does not work this way, but she seems a little soothed when he comes see her, her tremors settling down, reduced to bubbles underneath the surface of her skin instead of black bruises emerging on her body.

So no, she’s not better, but for a while, there’s no outburst. They talk and talk, and as time passes, Grant wishes he could go inside, wishes he could lead her out of here. But these are simple thoughts, made impossible by the danger she represents.

But then, one day, she just… Collapses.

His little brother was epileptic, so Grant knows what a seizure looks like. Somehow, this is ten times worse (she was doing well, she was doing ok, and now there’s blood all over her face like it’s coming out of her lungs, there’s her wrists twisting, there’s a sense of death hovering above her).

Without thinking, he pushes the emergency button to call the doctor, and then he presses the other button, the one opening the door.

He surges inside, falls to his knees next to her body that is bending in all the wrong ways. Gathering her up in his arms, he realizes the utter violence of her tremors and wonders how she hasn’t shattered to pieces already.

“Skye, hey, Skye, look at me.”

She does, mouth opening, but she can’t say anything lest she breaks her teeth.

So Grant holds her tight, unable to do much more, unable to offer her help or comfort whatsoever.

When the doctors run in, he’s still holding her, and they yell at him and drag him outside, but he doesn’t care.

Because despite the seizures, despite the pain, there’s a fact he can’t ignore : She didn’t hurt him.

Grant waits a few hours before the doctors exit her room. A woman with black curls and flowers on her surgical mask sighs when she sees him, and states:

“We can’t do anything.”

“What do you mean ?”

“You know the drill. We don’t know what’s happening to her, and we certainly don’t know how to fix it.”

“Is she ok ?” He asks and it’s dumb, he knows this is a stupid question but he can’t help ask it anyway.

The woman closes her eyes.

“No, she’s not. And she won’t be.”

When she sighs, he sees all the deaths that press her shoulders down, and he sees Skye’s adding to them right where her hand comes to rub the back of her neck painfully.

“I don’t think she represents a risk for you as long as she’s contained here. Maybe you can make her days a little softer.”

Grant passes by her to reach Skye just as the doctor whispers under her breath.

“This place is just full of ghosts.”

They laid her down on her side on the bed, and Grant comes inside the room to sit on the chair facing her. She doesn’t seem to be shaking anymore, just shivers rippling through her body.

She’s chocking on pain when she hisses out with a spurt of blood :

“My real name’s Daisy.”

It’s either because she knows she’s going to die soon, or because she needs a distraction, and so he asks :

“Real name ?”

“My parents gave it to me. But after what they did, after voluntarily exposing me to… this, I don’t want to keep anything from them.”

He takes her frail hand in his, and his heart tears open.

6 days later, they tell her she’s dead.

He doesn’t ask how. Grant pushes down the grief, and moves on.

****

His name is Ward, and he is already battered and beaten when he ends up in her interrogation room.

Daisy readjusts her fingerless gloves while he pushes himself up from the dirty floor. He is pretty, she notices, the kind of thought that comes and goes through the mind. Under the blood and the broken nose, the features are defined and rough, just like she usually enjoys them.

When he finally manages to sit up, a sharp hiss whistles through his teeth.

She wonders if they sent a jolt of electricity through his ribs, just for kicks. She probably would have, if she had Lincoln’s powers.

He looks up at her.

Daisy tilts her head to the side just to give herself an air of nonchalance, and states :

“You’ll give us the location of the last human resistance cell.”

He smiles through blood-stained teeth and her stomach sinks to her knees at the confident sight.

“I won’t give you shit,” he chuckles darkly, and Daisy wants to punch his teeth in.

That kind of answer is one she gets often, because she’s a woman, because she’s petite, because she’s not a giant pile of muscles and so they think it makes her less dangerous. It also comes from those who truly believe what they’re saying, but who will break at the slightest break of bone.

For some reason, she doesn’t think it’s this Ward’s case.

“Fine by me.” 

Her hand comes up in the air and her fingers twitch until she feels the bone of his arm pierce right through the skin in a spurt of blood.

Her art is a complex one; she can’t just lean on brutal force and hope they’ll talk before all their bones are broken. No.

Daisy knows her powers, knows how to apply pressure where it needs to be applied so their nerves will all awake and snap like a string. She knows how to find a point of pressure, sneak her strength all around it, and tighten her hold until they feel like their bodies are collapsing from inside.

So with Ward, she takes her time. She pats at his muscles, at his joints, at his nerves. She lets her power wrap around him, lets Ward bite his lips until they bleed and match the scarlet on his broken arm. Then, when he begins to fidget, she asks :

“Where are they ?”

Ward’s chuckle is dark, darker than she expected.

It speaks of training, it speaks of habit, and she gets a little smirk at the thought. She grew up in this, she grew up fighting beside her parents and she is far too good at what she does to let a pathetic human get the best of her.

He thinks he knows pain ?

She’ll show him he doesn’t.

She punches him in the face before surging out of the room under his mockeries, a dark storm twirling below her skin.

With countless daunts and jabs, he managed to get a reaction out of her before Daisy could get anything out of him, and that makes her unbelievably _angry_.

As soon as she has passed the door, her power lashes out on the windows before she can think better of it, and glass flies everywhere, piercing the skulls of the less lucky.

Not giving those whining on the floor the time of a second, Daisy walks out and promises herself that next session, she’ll tear the information from his fucking throat.

The next time happens much more the same, except the punch (no, this time she enjoys forming vibrating claws that dig and dig and make his chest cave in).

The third time is the same.

The fourth as well.

It’s the sixth time that things take a turn.

She could kill him in the blink of an eye, could bash his head in so easily, could tear his limbs out.

Yet, he looks up at her and smirks, and this time Daisy can’t shut up.

“Why are you protecting them ?” She shouts after a vicious snap of his third rib.

Ward’s eyes are incredibly dark when he narrows them and studies her, contempt and hatred giving way to a curiosity visible in the tilt of his head.

“Why wouldn’t I ?”

His breath is heavy and his words are slurred, but she needs answers, so she puts his rib back together with a snap of her fingers.

This is too important, this is crucial, this is the last step to take before the war is finally over and they can rule safely.

And this man won’t give her anything. She needs to know why.

“Why are you still fighting ?” She demands, pacing before him. Her hands clench involuntarily at her sides, unfamiliar with the resorting she’s forcing on herself. 

“Why are you ?”

“I’m asking the questions here.”

“How is that going for you ?”

Instead of yielding to the urge to choke the life out of him, Daisy gulps the rage down and states :

“Usually, pretty well.”

“Uh. Am I your first or something ?” He asks with a smirk that is far too cheeky for a bloody man held in captivity.

It’s funny.

Fuck.

She bites her tongue.

“You’re aware I could kill you right now.”

“So could anyone.”

“Are you that easy to kill ?” She taunts, her lips twitching up despite herself.

His smirk widens in something more honest and crueler all at once, holding into it just a sliver of pride decipherable.

“You’ll find out that I’m not.”

“I look forward to it.”

It’s so strange, to have a conversation that sounds so civil, on the verge of banter, even as they’re talking about her killing him. It doesn’t bother her that much. Death is a part of her life ; a huge one, at that. It’s just odd to find an echo of that within a man she is charged to execute.

Well. Once she gets the information she seeks.

She sighs just a bit, closing her eyes for a microsecond.

That’s her mistake.

He lunges at her, elbow slamming in her nose before she can see it coming, and then he kicks her feet from under her.

If she were anyone else, she would’ve been too surprised to do anything, and the blow coming towards her face would’ve reached its target.

But she’s Daisy Johnson, and she can count on her abilities to send him flying backwards.

Ward collapses against the wall (she hears bones crack, and she never likes when it’s accidental, she prefers they break of her volition).

“What do you think you’re doing ?” She hisses, the taste of blood tangy on her tongue.

There’s a few minutes during which she does not release her hold on him, during which he gasps like a fish out of water. She presses and presses down on his ribcage, wondering if her parents would kill her for crushing it under the fingertips-like pressure.

She releases him.

“I have to admit, you’re quite capable,” he pants with smirk, and it’s almost-almost- genuine.

“Wow, a compliment and a smile,” she mocks, spitting the blood that fell into her mouth. “Is it my lucky day ?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Honestly, after all this time,” she says, turning on her heels and sitting on the chair with her legs apart and her nose throbbing painfully, “I would’ve been disappointed.”

“I’m not one to disappoint in any field.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“So you thought of me in bed ?”

“What ?” She snorts, unable to help herself in surprise, and it burns all the way up her eyes until they water.

“Cause I did.”

“What does that accomplish ?” She asks, thrown off by his taunting.

“I like to stroke my ego with the knowledge girls think of me in bed,” he smirks, cocky like she hates, and she knows he’s lying; he’s not that type, far from it, he’s just trying to get a rise out of her or to distract himself. She yields.

“Considering the first time I saw you you were covered in blood and I tortured you, I can safely say that no, I have not thought of you in bed.”

“But you will.”

“Confident.”

“I know your type. Covered in blood is your kink, isn’t it ?”

Daisy smiles despite herself, despite her beliefs and despite everything. She should be angrier, she knows, she should want to tear his spine out through his nostrils, but she doesn’t. She might even be glad there’s still so much fight left in him.

And then she gets mad for feeling that way.

“Motherfucker,” she mutters, landing a hard punch in his stomach just because.

He coughs out a laugh that rumbles through him.

“Sweeter than a kiss,” he hisses when he can talk.

“Why are you doing this ?”

“What ?”

“Flirting. Does it help you focus on something else ? Does it help with the pain ?”

“Maybe I just like you.”

His smile, as his words, is sardonic, pulling her little grin down in a frown.

“That’d be sad.”

“What can I say ? I’m a romantic.”

“Doubt.”

Sighing, Daisy turns away from him so she doesn’t have to look when she steps through the door and states :

“Have a nice night, Ward. Might be your last.”

She waits four days before going back in. She knows she needs to rush this on, her father is getting too impatient about the resistance, and she wouldn’t want to see what happens if he learned she’s keeping a member in the cells and hasn’t told him about it.

She supposes she’s running out of time. That’s why she lets herself this session, and no more, before she goes to Cal and ask him -god, she despises groveling- to take it into his own hands. She has no wish to do so, but it might be the only solution now.

“Look who’s back.”

“You look better.”

He does indeed, having had four days to compose himself; but she’s not stupid, either : he had four days to plot. His face devoid of blood and the beard that begins to grow thicker and eat his cheeks don’t mean anything, except that he’s been here a while.

“Not gonna lie,” she begins, carefully studying his every movement while she goes and leans on the opposite wall, “thought you might be dead by now.”

“You of little faith,” he smirks. It’s different on a face that has found its life again, a bit more honest and a lot more mesmerizing, as can attest her lungs when they let a breathless chuckle out.

“Considering the last time I put an ounce of trust in you you attacked me, I won’t…”

“And what did you expect, uh ? That we would talk and flirt and suddenly your pretty face would make me reveal all my secrets ?”

Daisy is not used to this game at all. She is more into brutal force, and her opponents, if some have been honorably salty for a bit, all break under the tension.

Or die.

In any case, this type of banter is not something she is accustomed to, and she has to control the anger, the bitterness that make bile rise in her throat.

She has to figure this out, has to play along. Maybe it’s not so much playing anymore, but something deeper she’s reluctant to acknowledge.

“You think I’m pretty ?”

“So cliché. You could do better than that.”

“Come on Ward,” she sighs, teeth gritted. “Give me something. Otherwise, I won’t be the one interrogating you anymore, and I assure you, it won’t be as fun with my father.”

“Meeting the parents already ? Didn’t know we were at that point in our relationship.”

He’s so frustrating, Lord, she wants to slap him just for that.

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t. But she doesn’t.

“Yeah, well, trust me, I’m a peach compared to them.”

He tilts his head to the side, and not for the first time, she gets that annoying impression he’s the one studying and interrogating her, not the opposite.

“Why didn’t they come already ?”

“I told you, valuable…”

“No, not why they didn’t kill me. Why aren’t they here right now, why are you the one still interrogating me ? It’s been weeks and you’ve got nothing.”

Being called out on lies-or vulnerability-or incompetence-or failure- is not something Daisy enjoys, far from it. She turns her back to him, still careful to watch his every move, from the rise and fall of his chest to the way his fingers drum sporadically on his thigh.

“They’re busy.”

“Liar.”

Yeah. She really is.

“Am I like your secret boyfriend ?” He asks, sounding delighted at the prospect. “You haven’t told them about me ?”

“Shut up.”

“Have you ?”

“I told them about you, I just… Didn’t say you were that resilient.”

“Why ?”

“Beats me.”

To be honest, a lot of things since she’s met Ward are incomprehensible and unsettling. Unfortunately for him her duty is not one of them, which explains why she sits down on the floor, back against the wall and ease falsely written in her every pore -exude absolute boredom to show your control over the situation and to cover anxiety is a basic skill she’s managed a long time ago, trained by every conversation with her parents- and declares:

“You know, doesn’t make a difference if you talk to me now or to my father tomorrow.”

“But it does. To you, at least.”

It fucking does, but she’s not about to admit that, so she tilts her head to the side and lets herself focus on the fact that this man is a gnat.

“Is that so ?”

“Well, you would’ve told them before if it didn’t matter. Hell, you would’ve dropped me into their lap a long time ago. No, you wanted to do this yourself. To prove yourself to them”, he drawls on, frowning at her, and if he can analyze her, she has not punched his face nearly enough.

But there’ll be more than enough punching tomorrow.

Daisy stands. Forces herself to cross her arms, and look down on him with unaffected features and false smile, akin to a grimace.

“Well I guess you got me all figured out, uh ?”

“Not really. Can’t figure out why I’m still alive and relatively well, all things considered.”

“Because I failed at my job.”

That’s a hard pill to swallow, as it’s a truth she liked to sweep under the carpet with funny banter and his dumbass flirty replies. But now, faced with her failure, she is forced to admit it : she failed monumentally. She tried to fly and landed right on her face, and Ward’s as good as dead now.

Not that it matters.

“I’m sorry,” she merely says before exiting the room with the burden of her failure weighing heavily on her.

Daisy’s getting used to it.

The sounds that escape the room the day after disturb her to no end, and the feeling she gets even more so. But she’s a Johnson, she does not flee before a challenge or getting her hands dirty, and certainly not before blood or death.

Instead, she closes her eyes and bumps her head against the wall, feeling the vibrations of it tremble with her father’s anger and Ward’s pain.

Fuck.

There’s a loud yell -louder than the previous ones- , a snap, and she wonders if it’s his leg, but that makes bile rise in her throat so she lets her thoughts trail off. Daisy has been on the receiving end of her father’s powers more than once, has been a front-row spectator of his interrogations, and she wouldn’t wish that on most people. Not on Ward, that’s for sure.

But it is what it is, and the Johnsons do not dwell on what ifs.

When her father gets out, there are bruises all over his knuckles and slight splutters of blood on his shirt, but if she hadn’t just heard the screams, she would believe nothing happened.

Immediately straightening in a dutiful stance, Daisy awaits the verdict. Cal adjusts his cuff-sleeves, not sparing her a glance, and states :

“He’s a tough one.”

That’s the difference between her father and her; while her father spits the words like one would spit insults or bile, Daisy values Ward’s resilience. Don’t get her wrong, it was annoying as fuck at first, but now….

Well.

There might be a slight tilt of her feelings towards him is all. Respect instead of contempt. Amusement -dare she say _compassion_ \- instead of hatred. Which made it harder to listen and not react, to bend her head and curl into herself until there is finally blissful silence.

As her father leaves without another word, Daisy inhales deeply, clenches the first aid kit in her hand, and steps inside the room.

Immediately, the scent of blood assaults her.

That’s about right : her father’s interrogations’ trademark.

It’s not surprising anymore, but it still takes her at the throat, the taste settles on her tongue and her fingers tighten again, knuckles turning white.

Walking towards him takes way more time than needed, due to her voluntarily slow pace and extremely long steps that cross the distance in far too much time for such a small room.

Once close enough, she takes to studying his state; it’s miserable.

“Hell. He did a number on you, uh ?” She says, just to say something because she’s dangerously close to crouching in front of him and wiping the blood off his face.

When he doesn’t answer, she crouches down anyway.

“Come on Ward, don’t tell me one session did you in ?”

He makes a gargling sound that kinda makes her sick even though she heard it so many times before, has provoked it in some.

But seeing Ward, who has been resisting her interrogations for weeks, who has been flirting with a bloody face and fighting with snide remarks, in this state, it spurs an uneasiness within her she is not used to deal with. She can hear -feel- his heartbeat, slow and steady like he probably learned in training.

Sighing, Daisy takes a rag in the kit, and begins to clean his face (there is so much blood she wonders if her father popped his eye or something).

“You have terrible bedside manners.”

It’s ragged, rasped, rough like nothing she’s heard from him before and it draws her gaze to his instantly.

Instead of chuckling out of relief like she wants to, she throws the rag down and bites the inside of her cheek. 

“And you’re not dead yet.”

“Keep talking sweet to me.”

The words might be teasing, but there’s no humor in them, not when he’s hissing them through his teeth and shivering with pain. She straightens, begins to get to her feet, but in a gesture far too quick for someone in his condition, he’s suddenly gripping her wrist. She barely regains her balance as instinct sends her fist flying to his face, but she stops her movement right before it hits.

For about twenty seconds, they just stare at one another.

Despite the danger she represents, his fingers circling her wrist are cold and don’t let go, and she thinks that maybe, in the midst of all this shitstorm, she’s the only thing that connects him to his humanity as paradoxical as this may seem.

Her fist falls back down.

There are many logical reasons she could give her father that could make her kneel before him, but she doesn’t do it for any of those.

There’s no explanation for the delicacy with which she washes the blood off his nose, either, or the way her fingers gently lay on his cheek after she turns his head aside. His exhales puff on her skin, and she would congratulate him on the even pace of breathing he manages to set despite his state, were it not for an unfamiliar lump in her throat and the uncertainty that if she talks, she won’t say something she’ll regret later.

So she doesn’t say anything, and neither does he. But even the silence can’t hide the way his hand grips her arm, settling on her thigh when she has to move to the other side of his face. Trying to focus on the blood and the injuries is proving to be difficult with his warmth right there, because the injuries themselves are a sight she’s accustomed to. Since Ward arrived here, she hasn’t seen him once without a black eye or split lip or a bruise, but he was never this close.

Maybe, for a second, she’s tempted.

Maybe, for a second, she wants. Wants to break Ward out of here and just… go with him. After all, wouldn’t she be happier far away from this goddamn place ?

She would be. Probably.

But her family and her beliefs are here, have always been here, and they’re on the verge of establishing a new world order which is what her whole life has been aiming at. She’s not about to bail now for a pretty boy with a hero complex and strong determination.

But fuck her if she doesn’t want to.

“This is not gonna end well,” she suddenly says, a bit too shaky for her taste.

“And what part of the story made you think at one point that this would have a happy ending ?”

“One can always hope.”

“Holy fuck you’re a romantic.”

“Fuck off. It’s just…” She sighs, sitting back on her heels and displaying more trust than ever before in his presence. “All this has been going on for long enough. I just… Maybe I just want it to be over.”

“What ?” He asks, and she distantly notices his hand still lays on her thigh, but there’s no doubt in her mind that it’s for support -emotional and physical- and not a sign of danger. “The war ?”

“The war. The torture, the interrogations. The hatred. I don’t know.”

Her shrug shelters her current feelings while Ward just frowns, pensive. There’s still blood on his neck and Daisy has to resist scrubbing it off. She trails off, her thoughts getting lost between the desire to remain sitting here like a couple of teenagers skipping class and the fear of everything that is to come. His voice, softer than usual without its constant teasing tone, snaps her out of it.

“You think it can end ?”

“I have to believe it. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here ?”

It’s funny, isn’t it ? They are sitting there, facing each other, two individuals on opposite sides in this war and yet all they want is for the pain to stop. Maybe she was right, Daisy thinks as she studies him, maybe they’re quite similar.

Unfortunately, it does not change anything.

Right when she realizes that and is ready to straighten up, shots echo on the other side of the door.

The building shakes.

She’s not the one causing it, and that’s a _really_ bad sign.

“You wanted the resistance ?” Ward asks with an incredibly dark smirk from which blood drips in the corner. “Here they are.”

Bolting out of the room without locking the door is her next move, and then there are people running and the foundations of the base are crumbling, split in two. Multiple detonations can be heard, close and far away both, and Daisy stretches her arms, trying to feel it all and keep their base from imploding, but there’s nothing to be done, even with her powers.

Next thing she notices, Ward is running -as best as he can with a limp and broken ribs-, supported by a woman drenched in ashes and dirt.

That doesn’t bode well for Head of Operations.

The ceiling suddenly cracks and rumbles, letting pieces of concrete drop on people like on a teeming anthill. Like in slow motion, she sees one aiming straight at Ward, and something odd clenches like an iron fist around her stomach.

Daisy sends a wave towards the falling rock, blasting it the opposite side.

His eyes are wide when he looks back at her.

“Get out of here,” she says, too low for him to possibly hear in the thunder that is the explosion, but he seems to understand nonetheless.

The last thing she sees when she falls to her knees and refuses to close her eyes is this unworthy, insignificant human reaching towards her.

She feels the level above her fall down just as she thinks about reaching back.

***

When he’s 21 and on his way to being one of the most high-ranked Hydra agent, Raina tells him that a girl with flowers in her hair will be his doom.

Grant hates flowers.

Not one to dismiss Raina’s visions, he negotiates to be transferred North, in the cold lands of Svalbard. He’s not stupid, he knows flowers grow everywhere and have a tendency to appear in the least expected places, but it’s a small reassurance for his mind. He does his job, sticks to snow and cold mountains where it’s almost impossible for things to grow and survive in a too hostile and suffocating environment. Grant knows that too well.

He avoids stupid flowers at all cost, but after a while, the warning fades into the distance.

He’s getting chased down a hotel holding a flash-drive he’s ready to die for (it’s supposed to list the names and functions of Shield agents infiltrated within Hydra, specifying which of them are Inhumans, which is invaluable intel), and he opens the first door he can, slamming it shut as soon as he’s inside the room.

“What the fuck ?”

His head whirls around, and Grant blinks.

The first thing that hits him is brown eyes, rendered almost golden by the sun gleaming through the window.

Then the words register, and he holds his hands up.

“Sorry, I’m really sorry, I’m just…”

“Intruding ?”

“I’m trying to avoid someone,” he settles on.

The woman nods like she understands, and just like that she’s put at ease, leaning back on her chair with her arms crossed against her chest. Which, by the way is an incredible chest, but he’s not gonna focus on that now.

“Ah. An ex ?”

“Something like that.”

“I get it, honestly. You can stay for ten minutes, then I’m kicking you out.”

Baffled, Grant thanks her and stays rooted to the spot as she gets back to her work.

That’s… Unusual.

“Aren’t you a bit…”

“Scared ?” She finishes, tilting her head but still keeping her eyes on her computer. “Nah, I could kick your ass if I wanted to.”

Instead of chuckling like he wants to, both because she is sorely mistaken and because she’s quite amusing, Grant asks :

“You don’t want to ?”

“It’s a cute ass.”

The laugh escapes him for real this time.

“Do you often objectify strangers ?”

She arches an eyebrow, turning an unimpressed face towards him so she can point out :

“Only the ones that barge in my room uninvited.”

“Fair.”

The ten minutes pass quickly, too quickly, and as the woman talks to him exclusively in jabs and taunts, he ends up staying far longer than intended by them both.

Eventually, he checks his watch and swears.

“Late for a date ?” She chimes up, looking at him with amusement; she hasn’t looked away since he caught her eye.

“Work date, yeah. I’m sorry again, about the whole…. Barging in on you.”

“Bah,” she waves a hand dismissively, “we all do weird shit, don’t we ?”

“Well, thank you for the shelter.”

She nods, and though she seems to be waiting for something else, Grant is on a job and refuses to mix that with his private life. So he just nods as well, forces himself to turn around and exit this odd little hotel room.

(The flash-drive ends up being completely blank, and although he doesn’t understand how, Grant cannot find it in himself to be mad about it).

“Hey stranger.”

He turns his head to the right, and the woman is smiling at him, hair falling to the side. It’s not the kind of smile he’s used to seeing, and his mouth twitches up before he can think of controlling his features.

“Hi. I take it I didn’t scare you to death by barging into your room ?”

She waves the bartender over, which makes her golden bracelets clink, and shrugs.

“Believe it or not, I did far worse to hide from my ex.”

“Really ?” He taunts, a suspicious eyebrow raised at her.

She laughs, and it’s too loud for the dim hotel bar, it’s too unconventional for this pompous place filled with dull people with dull lives and dull jobs.

“I hid in the baggage wagon of a train because his seat was next to mine.”

“The whole trip ?”

The bartender sets her drink down in front of her as she gives Grant a complicit look.

“Lyon to Barcelona, the whole five hours.”

“What the hell are you doing in Svalbard if you had the chance to be in Spain or France ?”

The woman laughs again, takes a sip of her drink before tilting her head to the side. He tucks it away in the “subconscious habits” box.

“Wanted to see the country.”

“Not much to see.”

“Then what are you doing here ?”

“Work,” he shrugs.

The truth is, he’s getting sick of the grey sky and the cold and… And he just wants to leave this place.

“Ah, transfer ?”

“Temporary. I think I might leave soon.”

“I’m going to Italy next week,” she begins, drawing the words out like she wants him to hang on every syllable. “Lots of places to visit. Lots of streets to get lost in. I might need a guide, or a travel companion.”

“Is that an offer ?”

“If you want it to be.”

He downs his bourbon, baffled by her boldness, and by the way her eyes gleam, and by kind of everything about this woman.

“I’m Skye, by the way,” she adds, presenting her hand for him to shake.

He does, squeezing her fingers lightly when he answers back :

“Grant.”

“So, Grant, you have a hotel room or do you just break into other people’s accommodations ?”

He comes up to her room that night, but even if they stumble in kissing heatedly, they don’t fuck.

She stubs her toe against the corner of the bed, and they laugh so hard they let themselves fall onto the mattress, tangled up and a bit lost in each other. And when they start talking, they don’t really stop.

He manages to convince his superior officer that Italy requires his skills -those are useful everywhere anyway- and then they’re on their merry way, Skye and him, boarding trains and booking hotels and going to restaurants or visiting museums in their free time. They’re not together all the time, which is good, but soon enough, Grant realizes that he’d like to see her even more. Actually, he would like to sleep with her every night, to wake up in the same bed every morning, to bring her breakfast and take her to lunch and listen to her mumble about her boss who seems like a complete asshat, and let his heart stumble over itself when she takes his hand or brings his arm around her shoulders.

Fuck, he’s falling fast, and he’s falling hard.

It’s when she tells him, fidgeting and shifting her weight from foot to foot in the middle of their hotel room, that she needs to leave for Australia three days later, that Grant stares at her intently and doesn’t even hesitate asking :

“You need a travel buddy ?”

All the worry drains from her face, giving place to a smile he wouldn’t mind staring at for the rest of his life.

“That’d be wonderful.”

They make their way around the world, they learn each other’s bad habits and cope with them, they banter and bicker about which Marvel show is the best -it’s clearly Jessica Jones, not the Punisher like she asserts-, he almost kills her with a peanut (she’s allergic) and she drowns his pancakes in maple syrup without him having to ask.

It’s simple, it’s good, and he loves this girl too much for his rotten heart.

For the umpteenth time in ten minutes, Grant curses his luck, or lack of it. Aix en Provence in spring was bound to be a literal hell place for him, as the fields have bloomed into endless oceans of colors.

He hates flowers. If he could, he would just buy gasoline and pour it on the petals until all the fields were on fire.

But Skye is laughing, and tucking one behind his ear. So he’ll do his best to tolerate them. 

“Stop brooding.”

“I’m not,” he smiles, and finds out it’s the truth. She arches an unimpressed eyebrow.

“It’s kind of hard being grumpy when you look at me like that,” he points out.

“Bullshit,” she retorts, but to his delight, he can see her cheeks are rosier. “You’re always grumpy, it’s in your nature.”

“We’ll just say you bring out the best in me, yeah ?”

“Damn right I do.”

It’s unsettling, sometimes, how protective she is of him, how hard she believes he’s a good man and how upset she gets when he’s just a bit self-depreciating. Baffling in a good way, especially when she tells him she trusts him, or that he’s good, or that she loves him, with an assertiveness that always makes it impossible not to fall even deeper in love with her.

He’s an agent, but he is hers first, and that’s probably why he gets lost in her when they kiss and doesn’t hear the noise.

It’s just steps at first. But when he eventually realizes they’re numerous and coming closer, it’s already too late.

Surging to their feet doesn’t help anything, and all he sees is the barrel of a faceless man pointed at Skye.

He doesn’t even think as he jumps before her.

The bullet hits his chest and he falls to the ground.

Skye screams.

When she kneels and grabs his head between her hands, the world seems to split open under his body, but he can’t be sure. He feels the tremors going to the Earth’s core, but all he can see is her face painted by sorrow.

She’s sobbing, and he wishes she wouldn’t be sad, but his mouth doesn’t work when he tries to tell her, it just fills up with blood.

And in this split second before he dies, realizations come down upon him (It wasn’t a hazard that she was in that hotel, that she came onto him, that she approached him afterwards; her powers speak of themselves).

Petals seem to drop on them like rain and get tangled up in her hair.

It’s all he can smell beyond the taste of blood, it’s all he can see, this girl he loves with daisies in her hair.

****

It comes to him in flashes.

There is darkness, then fire and blood, then nothing.

Grant doesn’t know yet that what he’s seeing is not just the end of him, it’s the end of everything.

Daisy notices him, and she likes him.

Like with everything she wants, she gets him.

Beckons him closer with a surge of power running from her finger to him.

When he halts just before her, a few inches separating them and her eyes boring into his panicked ones, she whispers :

“I’m gonna keep you.”

The Earth shatters when she leaves, splits right in the middle and explodes, but she keeps this man right next to her and lets him watch the destruction she sets off.

He does not cry.

She likes him even more for it.

She takes him to bed and molds him to her liking, seeping dark thoughts in his mind without a care for the havoc she wrecks within this man.

He obeys her every directive and her every command, leaving trails of kisses down her body when she pushes on his head, gripping her ass harder when her thighs tighten where they’re wrapped around his ears, whispering in all the eight languages he knows when she requires so. The knowledge and awareness of everything in the world is her possession, yet his tongue wrapping around syllables in a different way each time is the most beautiful thing she’s ever heard.

His name on her lips tastes incredible, better than dying supernovas, especially when muttered in the crook of his neck as she commands him to go faster and harder and the stars contained in her bloodstream seem to bloom.

The first time she goes down on him, she lifts a bit of the hold she has on him; just a bit, just to see how he reacts to her touch and her lips wrapping around him, how his body responds to her smoldering ministrations when he is not under the influence of her orders.

The thing beating darkly in her chest seems to burn brighter than the sun when he moans and fists his hand in her hair.

She takes to Ward much more than expected. Fiddling with him is thrilling and brings some much needed warmth in her body made icy by the coldness of space.

She asks him about his life, asks him about his scars and the bullets that tore his skin.

He tells her all, and she does not think it is because he lacks choice.

Keeping him becomes something other than a choice, it becomes natural and, dare she say, enjoyable. Oxygen depravation was never something she felt concerned with, as she travelled the skies and the many universes and galaxies without a care for physical constrains and confines, but when Ward kisses her hotly and messily with his hips stuttering against hers, Daisy feels her lungs empty of all air.

She has always liked sex, but with Ward she enjoys pleasuring him as well, and that is unprecedented.

And now she shares with him as well, shares the things she did and will do, the things she wants.

The craving in her chest that led to the destruction of entire planets and populations softens with him at her side.

He must love her.

Ward has seen her at her worst, has witnessed her pain and her sadness, has felt everything she lived through as she took on her dad’s mission and travelled universe after universe, destroying and shattering and later, finding solace in his body.

He must love her, Daisy thinks. She does not believe in anything at all -when you balance the power of the universe in your hands, you come to see the cosmos as the frail thing it is- but this, she believes.

Grant Ward, this feeble human she kept on a whim, is in love with her.

And she worries she might love him as well.

A few centuries after Earth has been destroyed, she lifts the spell she had on him, and the first thing he does is kiss her.

Her heart seems to burst with the stars that run through her veins, and Daisy does not think she has ever experienced this in her very long life, doesn’t think she’s ever been able to feel this way no matter the worlds she destroyed and the stars she collected on her way.

It must be love, she thinks.

And then a blade stakes her through the rotten thing called heart, and the last thing she sees before she falls asleep forever is his eyes, burning with hatred and revenge and the last thing she hears is his spiteful “ _That’s for humanity_ ”.

Daisy has never felt more human than in this moment, with the man she loves betraying her and putting an end to everything she has ever been and could have been.

She feels the universe explode right before she dies, and in those blurry prisms and looking glasses Daisy sees all the lifetimes they had and could ever have.

****

“Daisy ! Daisy, come back here !”

Grant chases after her, panics when he watches her turn the corner without a care for his heaving lungs.

Following soon after, he stops running when he almost tumbles into a woman crouching before his grey Weimaraner, whose tail is wiggling far too vigorously for a dog that has been running away from its owner for ten minutes. She’s probably drooling all over the stranger as well.

“Daisy, for God’s sake,” he heaves, not wasting a second to put her back on a leash.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately pants, but the woman’s smile is blinding when she looks up at him and her eyes twirl with amusement. He’s rarely seen a face so honestly open.

She tilts her head to look up at him, which makes her brown curls bounce around her face.

“Daisy ?”

It takes a second or two for Grant to regain his bearings, because this is exactly what his brother teased him with when Grant got his dog, and to his experience, the universe doesn’t just make you tumble upon someone like her.

“Uh, yeah. My little brother Thomas came up with it.”

“How old is he ?”

“Twenty five.”

Her hand flies to her mouth to stifle a laugh, and it’s adorable enough but then Daisy decides to lick her face, and yeah, this is melting his heart (it’s not good, not good for his health).

They go for coffee, and she tells him she works in social services, taking care of children that await an adoption, trying to find them a good home. That echoes with him, and he tells her all about his childhood, his abusive parents and brother, and she listens without offering any weak “sorry”, just listening. After, she asks about his little brother who is twenty five but finds a name like Daisy for a dog, and he laughs.

As his dog gets agitated after a while, he reluctantly tells her he has to bring Daisy back to his apartment, and to his utter surprise she asks if she can come with.

“What ?” He manages to say, dumbstruck.

“I mean, if it’s alright with you of course. My day is over, and I’ve got nothing to eat in my fridge. Maybe I can invite you to diner ?”

“I can cook.”

Her smile is too bright in the dimly lit coffee shop, but he doesn’t look away.

In fact, he doesn’t look away the entire night, completely enraptured by this girl who reveals, perched up on his counter with her legs dangling as she watches him cook, that she was an orphan herself, and that she doesn’t wanna find her parents because she doesn’t need nor want them to define her.

She leaves around one in the morning leaving her number and ID picture in his phone, and making him promise to get coffee the day after.

Henceforth, they actually see each other everyday. Grant isn’t usually the type to get attached so quickly, or to be so hung up on someone, but Skye is… bewitching, in a way. In the simple way that is that she makes him smile and actually cares wether he laughs or not at her stupid jokes and stupider pick-up lines, and that when it’s cold outside she puts her beanie on his head because “you don’t have any hair, you’ll catch a cold” “Are you calling me bald ?” “Not yet”, but there’s wind and her hair flies in her face every two seconds, getting into her mouth, and so he dares tuck her under his arm and try to provide a bit of shelter from the wind.

She wraps her arms around his middle section, and nothing could feel more natural than this.

Some parts of the world go to shit, but they don’t really follow up with it, both too comfortable in their little bubble. There is a war going on in the United States, there are aliens and powers and political shifts, but they don’t really pay attention to it, because they have the chance to be able to just turn it off.

She asks him if she can move in one evening, as she’s seated on the floor, back against the couch where he’s massaging her neck, and Daisy sprawled on her lap.

He tilts her chin up and kisses her upside down.

When she laughs, it’s like seeing the sun after months of captivity, and nothing in the world compares to this.

Warmth fills his body from head to toe, and Grant can’t imagine his life without this incredible woman in it, can’t imagine not loving her and having her love him back. Maybe it’s a little too fierce sometimes, a lot selfish, but they would both damn the world without a second thought if it meant saving the other.

And as corny as it sounds, Grant likes to believe there are a million universes out there, a million realities, but that in every one of them, they find each other.

**Author's Note:**

> That's it guys, hope you enjoyed !  
> The end was really important to me, because I truly think they couldn't have a happy ending with their story on the show; as soon as Ward was wrapped with Garrett and Skye in Shield, it was over, which is why the only time they manage to get together and actually live is when neither of them is in any organization.  
> Anyway, leave reviews if you liked, it'd mean the world, thank you for reading !!


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